The media was reporting yesterday that if Lieberman switched parties it would throw the majority control into the Republicans court. Now we find out that this is actually wrong. The Democrats will retain control of the 110th Senate until the 111th Senate is convened:
If Lieberman were to caucus with the Republicans, they would still not take full control of the Senate, despite Vice President Dick Cheney’s ability to break 50-50 ties. This is because of a little-known Senate organizing resolution, passed in January, which gives Democrats control of the Senate and committee chairmanships until the beginning of the 111th Congress.
It sounds like the Democrats had a feeling Joe would end up pulling this stunt and decided to add a little bit more protection into their slim majority. What a sweet move.
Now this doesn’t say that the Majority Leader, Harry Reid, can’t restructure committees. As a matter of fact that is exactly what I am expecting to happen if Joe does switch. The committee to be restructured? Homeland Security, currently chaired by the back-stabbing Senator from Connecticut. Yup – this would get Joe out of his dream chairmanship. Of course it would also mean a real Democrat chairing the committee and perhaps looking into the Katrina failures, something Lieberman promised to do on the campaign trail, but quickly showed his false promises and hate to the people of New Orleans.
Sentiment is growing around the blogosphere for Joe to leave. Howie has this to say:
If the Dems go through with it, Lieberman will bug out– and good riddance to him! The proposed legislation reportedly would “restrict American troops in Iraq to combating al-Qaida, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.” After the bad faith shown by McConnell and the GOP in general, Reid and the Democrats are finished with the nonbinding crap.
Once it became clear that Lieberman switching parties wouldn’t trigger a reorganization of the leadership structure, most Democrats were privately saying they’re better off without him. Even the most egregious of Lieberman’s enablers, people who undermined Lamont’s campaign– like Landrieu, Schumer, Reid, Clinton and Salazar– don’t care anymore and seem happy that this is going to come to a head. Lieberman is obviously supporting fellow warmonger John McCain for president and the two of them plus Lindsey Graham have their own little thing going. The whole brouhaha seems to be proving that Lieberman has no real leverage with the Democrats afterall (regardless of really embarrassingly sloppy reporting by some Italian guy in Time).
It goes with my post last night that the Democrats won’t bow down to terrorist #1 (Joesama). The repeal of the war authorization act is exactly what the Democrats need to call Joesama’s bluff. This might end two disasters – Iraq and Lieberman. This will be another hot debate to watch.